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U.S. Congress May Lift Ban On Head Coverings, Including Kippahs And Hijabs

Newly-elected United States congresswoman Ilhan Omar is pushing to overturn a 181-year-old prohibition on head coverings in the House of Representatives, a move that would permit Jewish skullcaps, or kippahs, and Islamic headscarves, or hijabs, to be worn in the legislature. “No one puts a scarf on my head but me. It’s my choice—one protected by the first amendment. And this is not the last ban I’m going to work to lift,” Omar wrote this weekend on Twitter. A Somali-born Minnesotan, Omar is one of two Muslim women elected to Congress for the first-time ever in this month’s mid-terms. The other is Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, who is of Palestinian descent. The proposal, reportedly backed by top Democrat Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Jim McGovern, the incoming rules chairman, would create a religious exception to the ban that was implemented in 1837.